Reading List on the ARSEs of AI
They did the primary research so we didn't have to
I have a draft article hopefully to be published in a magazine in the coming months. It’s on some of the ideologues running things in Silicon Valley; specifically, AI’s rampant-speed evangelists, or “ARSEs.”
Yes, yes, I know; I skipped the “I” and the hyphen between “rampant” and “speed” for the sake of making a silly acronym. Trust me when I say: I have seen worse work in the world of AI ethics for the purpose of making acronyms.
Back to the actual article and, without providing too many spoilers…
It was fascinating for me to dig quite deeply into the ideology of ARSEs. “TESCREAL” (Gebru & Torres, 2024) is a well-known acronym describing some of the historical origins of what ARSEs believe in. But “TESCREAL” focuses on the ideologies underpinning “artificial general intelligence” in particular, and I wanted to get into the weeds of ideologies about AI more generally.
However, in writing the piece, I learned of many sources —often grey literature— pointing in the direction of a transatlantic conversation held over a few books and many blogposts and podcast episodes. I didn’t read the books, nor did I have the patience for the podcast episodes, but I did find myself reading early-2000s blogposts and —thankfully— news and magazine articles on the topic of this transatlantic conversation.
Below, I provide a list of some of those news and magazine articles that study ARSEs more closely. In a now seemingly ancient post, I wrote “Thank the scribes!” for making historical research possible. In this case, I thank all the authors of the below essays for their great work, with special thanks to those who had the patience to interview ARSEs directly and even attend their events.
The List
Beauchamp, Z. (2019) ‘Accelerationism: the idea inspiring white supremacist killers around the world | Vox’, Vox, 19 November. Available at: https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/11/11/20882005/accelerationism-white-supremacy-christchurch (Accessed: 30 April 2025).
Beckett, A. (2017) ‘Accelerationism: how a fringe philosophy predicted the future we live in’, The Guardian, 11 May. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/11/accelerationism-how-a-fringe-philosophy-predicted-the-future-we-live-in (Accessed: 21 April 2025).
Benson, T. (2025) ‘Elon Musk wants to use AI to run US gov’t, but experts say “very bad” idea’, Al Jazeera, 13 March. Available at: https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2025/3/13/elon-musk-wants-to-use-ai-to-run-us-govt-but-experts-say-very-bad-idea (Accessed: 21 April 2025).
Burrows, R. (2022) ‘NRx: A Brief Guide for the Perplexed’, 18 November. Available at: https://www.platformspace.net/home/nrx-a-brief-guide-for-the-perplexed (Accessed: 21 April 2025).
Chayka, K. (2025) ‘Techno-Fascism Comes to America’, The New Yorker, 26 February. Available at: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/techno-fascism-comes-to-america-elon-musk (Accessed: 30 April 2025).
Chowdhury, H. (2023) ‘Get the lowdown on “e/acc” — Silicon Valley’s favorite obscure theory about progress at all costs, which has been embraced by Marc Andreessen’, Business Insider, 28 July. Available at: https://www.businessinsider.com/silicon-valley-tech-leaders-accelerationism-eacc-twitter-profiles-2023-7 (Accessed: 30 April 2025).
Griffith, E. and Yaffe-Bellany, D. (2024) ‘How Crypto Insiders Turned “Debanking” Into a Political Storm’, The New York Times, 10 December. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/10/technology/crypto-debanking-trump.html(Accessed: 21 April 2025).
Harris, R. (2019) ‘Elon Musk: Humanity Is a Kind of “Biological Boot Loader” for AI’, Wired, 1 September. Available at: https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-humanity-biological-boot-loader-ai/ (Accessed: 30 April 2025).
Heilweil, R. (2025) ‘Dozens of lawmakers question DOGE’s use of AI’, FedScoop, 18 April. Available at: https://fedscoop.com/doge-ai-unauthorized-lawmakers-letter/ (Accessed: 21 April 2025).
Higgins, E. (2025) ‘Peter Thiel, Trump’s Man in Silicon Valley’, Rolling Stone, 23 February. Available at: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/owned-book-peter-thiel-trump-tech-silicon-valley-1235276868/(Accessed: 30 April 2025).
Isenstadt, A. (2022) ‘A mole hunt, a secret website and Peter Thiel’s big risk: How J.D. Vance won his primary’, Politico, 3 May. Available at: https://www.politico.com/2022-election/embeds/2022-05-03/embeds/2022-05-03/ohio/gop-primary-senate-leaderboard-and-map/ (Accessed: 21 April 2025).
Mac, R. and Lerer, L. (2022) ‘The Right’s Would-Be Kingmaker’, The New York Times, 14 February. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/14/technology/republican-trump-peter-thiel.html (Accessed: 30 April 2025).
Marchese, D. (2025) ‘Curtis Yarvin Says Democracy Is Done. Powerful Conservatives Are Listening.’, The New York Times, 18 January. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/18/magazine/curtis-yarvin-interview.html (Accessed: 30 April 2025).
Nolan, B. (2023) ‘Silicon Valley has a new version of its beloved “move fast and break things” mantra’, Business Insider, 6 December. Available at: https://www.businessinsider.com/silicon-valley-move-fast-and-break-things-sam-altman-openai-2023-12 (Accessed: 30 April 2025).
Pogue, J. (2022) ‘Inside the New Right, Where Peter Thiel Is Placing His Biggest Bets’, Vanity Fair, 20 April. Available at: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/04/inside-the-new-right-where-peter-thiel-is-placing-his-biggest-bets(Accessed: 30 April 2025).
Pogue, J. (2023) ‘Inside the New Right’s Next Frontier: The American West’, Vanity Fair, 21 February. Available at: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/02/new-right-civil-war (Accessed: 21 April 2025).
Prokop, A. (2022) ‘Curtis Yarvin wants American democracy toppled. He has some prominent Republican fans.’, Vox, 24 October. Available at: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/23373795/curtis-yarvin-neoreaction-redpill-moldbug(Accessed: 30 April 2025).
Roose, K. (2023) ‘This A.I. Subculture’s Motto: Go, Go, Go’, The New York Times, 10 December. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/technology/ai-acceleration.html (Accessed: 30 April 2025).
Smith, B. (2025) ‘The group chats that changed America’, Semafor, 28 April. Available at: https://www.semafor.com/article/04/27/2025/the-group-chats-that-changed-america (Accessed: 30 April 2025).
Smith, H. and Burrows, R. (2021) ‘Software, Sovereignty and the Post-Neoliberal Politics of Exit’, Theory, Culture & Society, 38(6), pp. 143–166. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276421999439.
Tamkin, M. (2024) ‘Andreessen Horowitz co-founders explain why they’re supporting Trump’, TechCrunch, 16 July. Available at: https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/16/andreessen-horowitz-co-founders-explain-why-theyre-supporting-trump/(Accessed: 21 April 2025).
Torres, É.P. (2023) ‘“Effective Accelerationism” and the Pursuit of Cosmic Utopia’, Truthdig, 14 December. Available at: https://www.truthdig.com/articles/effective-accelerationism-and-the-pursuit-of-cosmic-utopia/ (Accessed: 21 April 2025).
Ulmer, A. et al. (2025) ‘Exclusive: Musk’s DOGE using AI to snoop on U.S. federal workers, sources say’, Reuters, 8 April. Available at: https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/musks-doge-using-ai-snoop-us-federal-workers-sources-say-2025-04-08/ (Accessed: 21 April 2025).
